Puckoon

The mad world of Spike Milligan's 1963 novel is inhabited by the eejits, gobshites and cnawvshawling bollixes of the titular small town, northeast of Sligo. After a physical struggle with the pen, the Border Commission - post-partition, 1924 - overseen by the apoplectic Sir John (Jones), slices Puckoon in half. Barbed wire goes up, ructions erupt and cross border conflicts flare. The British Army's ineffectual Colonel Stokes (Rhys-Jones) demands passports and receives contempt; indignant Father Rudden (O'Malley) transports bodies from his newly Northern Irish cemetery to the safety of the Free State; the IRA secretes arms in coffins; and, momentously, the community's faithful drinkers are forced to the cheaper Free State end of the bar. Writer/director Ryan deals with all this much in the manner of an extended TV sketch, embracing Oirish national stereotyping with the enthusiasm he showed in The Brylcreem Boys. It's old-fashioned nonsense, a rambling, occasionally funny tribute to the hit and miss anarchism of Milligan's comedy.